Moving Day

Today was moving day for our family!  Unfortunately, ALL 3 of us were sick today, but that didn't stop us!  I've been sick since last Monday with an upper respiratory infection.  I can't remember the last time I've coughed so hard for so long, I'm ready to feel better!  Emma started in with the runny nose and cough on Friday and has run a fever all day today.  Robin just started feeling sick today and was pretty miserable throughout the move, but we made it!

Thank you SO much to my family: my mom, my brother, my Uncle Ron, and my Aunt Judy for selflessly volunteering their Sunday to just be with us, help direct traffic, clean, watch Emma, and unpack.  We couldn't have done it without you because we were a bunch of sickies!

The movers met us at our storage unit at 9:00 where they loaded up the majority of our stuff.  Seeing them load up the entire storage unit really got me thinking about how much we really can live 'without.'  We were without 90% of our belongings for 10 months while we lived with my mom.  Sure, we were fortunate to have her appliances, her furniture, etc., but really, we have so much STUFF!  It just made me realize that while I'm grateful to have my stuff back, it's really just stuff. :)  Does this make any sense?

Emma was a real trooper today during the move.  She mostly hung out with Nana and Aunt Judy (Doodie.)  She LOVED seeing all of her 'new' toys!  I think she remembered most of them, but to her, this was like an early Christmas.  Too bad her Birthday is this week, then Christmas one week later- that's a lot of gifts at once!

"Look Mom, a horsey!" She got this rocking horse from Aunt Fallon and Uncle Craig last Christmas.  She's been riding it all night tonight:

I am sitting in my living room tonight so grateful for our home.  We have slaved over this thing (and not done yet) for several months.  I will say that putting blood, sweat, and tears into something, really makes you have a great appreciation for it.  I also feel strongly that this is the house that God had planned for us- He put it on my heart the first time we saw it and I couldn't stop thinking about it.  There were several bumps along the road, but through it all, God kept revealing that this was the house for us. 

It's sleeting outside with temperatures in the 20's/30's right now which means we may be homebound tomorrow.... which would be fine because there is a lot to be done around here!

Kitchen boxes, ready to be unpacked... tomorrow:

Tonight, we all got in our P.J.'s and watched the Dallas Cowboys game- the T.V. was the first thing we hooked up of course:

And just in case you're wondering... Koby made the move well also.  He was a bit stressed out during the day but once he found out that his food was here, he decided this could be his new home:

Stay warm everyone!

Crunch Time

We plan to move into our new house sometime this weekend!   Yipee!  We currently have movers scheduled for Friday, but we may have to push it back a day depending on when the carpet and tile are complete.  They are almost done, just a few areas of tile to grout. We have been frantically finishing a few painting projects this last week before the carpet was installed- it's so much easier when you don't have to worry about dripping paint on the carpet. 

Thank you so much to our family members who have sacrificed their time to help.  Robin's parents were a tremendous help when they were here for Thanksgiving.  My mom has watched Emma for us countless time so that we could work on the house without a 2 year old at our feet.  This last weekend my mom, my aunt Judy, and brother Brandon and mom, came over to help with last minute projects.  We had a great time hanging out while we worked. 

Here are a few pics from the last crunch week:

My mom and Emma putting new shelf paper in some of the kitchen drawers- it was a "sticky situation!"

 

Brother Brandon and Robin getting rid of a very huge plate rack that was on the living room wall.   This thing was a beast!

 

Aunt Judy painting the sunroom- we saved the very hardest room for last!

 

We even enlisted Emma to help paint!  She kept asking "Emma paint the house?"  We gave her a brush and she chose to paint the windows.  Good think the paint was washable.

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas...

Well... not at our new house, but everywhere else!  I so wish we were moved in to our house and all decorated for Christmas.  We are tentatively set to move in to our house sometime next week, just a few weeks before Christmas.  We probably won't be able to go all out on Christmas decorations, but we definitely plan to put up a tree, stockings, and a Christmas wreath on our front door! :)  Emma is so fascinated with Christmas trees this year.  She loves to look at them, touch them, talk about them, etc.  Every time we go to Target, we have to go to the Christmas decoration section for Emma to browse. She demands that we see the "Kwismus twees!"  So, for now, we are getting our Christmas decoration fix from Target each week.

Thanksgiving

We just wrapped up a wonderful, memorable, Thanksgiving week.  We were very lucky to have lots of family members from both sides of our family travel to Tulsa to celebrate Thanksgiving.  We were sad not to be able to see Robin's brothers and sisters for Thanksgiving, but with all of our house projects pending, we didn't feel like we could travel.  Luckily, we'll see them in just a few weeks for Christmas!

My mom's sister, Renee, traveled from Colorado, her brother, Danny, traveled from Kansas, and my cousin, Steve, traveled with his family from Louisiana.  Robin's parents also traveled from TX and were here for several days.  It was so great to spend time with everyone... we had quite a full house!

Our weekend was jam packed with fun events.  We had hobo stew the night before Thanksgiving, had an awesome meal on Thanksgiving day, went to see Christmas lights at Rhema on Thanksgiving night, went to Incredible Pizza on Friday night, had a Ruby Slipper ice cream float party on Saturday, and had a pajama party on Saturday night.  Emma LOVED spending time with her 2nd cousins- she loves big kids and she loves babies so she was in heaven.

Here are a few pics from our weekend!

Emma was so excited to see Gigi- she kept hugging her very tightly!

  

Emma cuddling with Pops:

Emma and Aunt Judy:

Brandon and Koby napping together:

Emma and Olivia hanging out in the wagon:

Jill reading to Emma and Madeline:

Cousin Robin reading to Emma:

Emma loved sitting between Pops and Gigi during our Thanksgiving meal:

The Foster clan: Judy (dad's sister), Ron (dad's brother), Jill, Emma, Sara (dad's cousin), Haley (dad's 2nd cousin) (Brandon was napping during this picture!):

Family at Rhema lights:

Robin, Jill, and Emma at Rhema lights: 

Emma and Olivia playing:

 

Olivia brought Emma a new baby dol l that she immediately fell in love with.  Pops affectionately named the baby, "Bubba."

Emma hugging Madeline:

The whole clan at Incredible Pizza- yes, it was incredible!:

Emma taking care of Maddie:

Emma's favorite game at Incredible Pizza- the coin game:

 

Mom's good friends, The Ruby Slippers, came over for an ice cream float party on Saturday.  They had met mom's brother, Danny, on their road trip to Kansas this summer.  They wanted to meet the rest of the family.  Mom served yummy ice cream floats and cookies:

The Ruby Slippers, plus Danny and Olivia!:

Cousin Pajama party:

Pajama party dance-off :

Wrestling match:

More House Pictures

We are getting close to finishing up Phase 1 of our house remodeling which means we'll get to move in very soon- hopefully a week or so after Thanksgiving... just in time for Christmas. :)

Here is what we've been working on this week...

Formal living before:

Formal living after: (walls changed from mauve to yellow- chandalier changed from gold to brown...new carpet to come this week)

One wall of kitchen cabinets before:

One wall of kitchen cabinets after: (cabinets stained dark espresso, walls changed from wallpaper to plastered yellow with tea stained faux finish)

Office before:

Office after: (walls painted, drapes down, new carpet and light fixture to come this week)

Telephone desk before:

Telephone desk after:

House Update

 

I realized today that I really haven't blogged much about our new house!  We were kind of at a standstill for a couple of weeks after closing on the house because we were getting bids and making plans.  However, now we are really making progress and I feel like I can share an update.

The house we purchased was a foreclosure.  We immediately loved the one-story floorplan and the neighborhood that the house is in.  Luckily, the house was in fairly good shape- it was very clean and very well cared for.  However, there were several (let's say a million) cosmetic things that we definitely wanted to change prior to moving in. In a nutshell, the entire house was painted Mauve (as in pinkish-puke colored) and the carpet in 2 rooms was teal!  The curtains were a major eye-sore as well.   I chose to look past these features and see the house for what it could be- NOT an ugly duckling but a beautiful swan! :)  Ok, that was supposed to be funny.

I do think it's funny that Robin and I chose to take on such a huge project- I've had several people say to me, "Oh, you and your husband must be really handy."   I have to chuckle inside when hearing this (no offense Robin!)  Let me just say that we are "learning" to be handy and we are always up for a challenge- right Robin?  It has already been such a memorable experience.

We've had so many people tell us to do as much as possible before moving in because the remodeling process can create such a mess.  Of course, everything has taken longer than expected, but we are now flying through the process and are hoping to move in sometime the week after Thanksgiving. 

Painters have been in the house for the past week or so and should finish up on Thursday.  Robin and are also doing some of the painting ourselves which has been a lot of fun.  We sneak out of my mom's house after Emma has gone to bed (don't worry- mom is here with her) and go to our house to paint.  We talk, listen to music, and paint paint paint- real marital bonding! 

We will still have several projects on our "to do list" and our "wish list when we win the lottery" after we move in.  However, the majority of the painting and flooring will be complete.  We plan to tackle the exterior of the house in the Spring when the weather heats up a bit- we'd like to re-do some landscaping, trim the trees, paint the trim a brown color, etc.

We have some family coming in town next week for Thanksgiving- we told them they can come if they B.Y.O.B- bring their own BRUSH.  They have to paint the room they stay in- just kidding.  We WILL probably put them to work though. :)

Here are a few pics from the last week so you can see what we've been working on.  I plan to post more before and after pictures when we are really finished. 

Robin painting one of the hallways: (covering up the mauve with a yellow-neutral color we picked out- similar to the color in our old house)

 

Kitchen cabinets: this picture kind of shows you the cabinets before and after- the cabinets were originally the lighter, oak color.  The painter glazed them and now they are dark and I LOVE them!  They are getting ready to do a tea-stain plaster faux finish on the kitchen walls tomorrow:

 

Master bedroom before: (yikes!)

 

Master bedroom after paint: (new carpet coming next week!) Robin and I painted this room- we covered up the mauve color with a light brown .) 

Stay tuned for more pics and stories!